So I present to you the "What's A 'To-Hit' Roll" Empire build.
I'll comment on it later.
But now...
OGRE KINGDOMS
Brief units & army’s analysis
Heroes
Greasus Gooldtooth: could be really interesting, but his command ability is unplayable, ‘cause depends too much on agreement between players. He won’t be included in my list. (
Of course, if in your meta can happen that Greasus bribes Glade Guards into attacking the Wood Elf wizard, go for it!)
Tyrant: your general. A melee monster with rerollable to hit, and can give immunity to battleshock test to one unit
BSB: all ogor units within a 18” radius deliver additional mortal wounds on rolls of 6. Good!
Butcher: the maw spell could literally chomp away units. You need wizards, and this guy is so much better than the other one in the role (Firebelly).
Golgfag maneater: he obviously buffs maneaters, and will have a random special wargear to increase his CC (rend -3), saves (3 instead of 4) or shooting (up to range 18” and 3 dam).
Troops
Ogres: big guys, good number of attacks and nice damage, lots of nice abilities (reroll combat dices, inflict wounds on successful saves rolling 6, free save on 6 vs shooting)
Ironguts: ogres’ big brothers. They have less abilities, but better save, and rune maw bearers can shield them from magic (but don’t count on it) and under right conditions, they can reroll all ones.
Gorgers: they can ambush (but in a poor effective way, given that they don’t act when they appear…), and they can run and charge. Sadly, their combat stats aren't that impressive.
Ironblaster: cannon with move 7”, but short range, single shot and not too much reliable, unless you’re targeting large units
Gnoblar scraplauncher: range 33”, single shot, even less reliable than Ironblaster, but the damage can be nice against large units.
Hunter: nice ranged attack if he runs (range 18”, dam d6), and gives + to the charge of
Sabretusks.
Mournfang cavalry: ogres on mounts, with many similar abilities, but better saves, far more attacks and superior move (and can reroll dices for charge distance).
Maneaters: (play them with Golgfag to reroll 1s to wound). In CC, they’re ogres with less abilities but with more attacks, better to hit and rend. Plus, they shoot at 12” for d3 dam and can have a special ability of your choice (run & charge, immunity to battleshock and so on).
Monsters
Stonehorn: ohohoheheh… 12 wounds, and halves ALL the damage inflicted to it (stone skeleton). Can run and charge, and at full strength, moves at 8”. Devastating number of attacks, and d6 mortal wounds on charge. And comes with a nice ranged attack (or with a Vulture, that can automatically deliver d3 mortal wounds within 30”, but you could miss the intended target)
Thundertusk: ohohoheheh… stonehorn’s cousin, without Stone Skeleton, but with double ranged attack: one is the same as Stonehorn (with the option of blood vulture)… and the second one can deliver (at top) 6 mortal wounds within 18”, on a mere roll of 2+.
Giant: great number of attacks, but the real damage is limited to a couple of them. CC only.
Overall impression
The strength of this army it’s also its weakness. They’re mostly melee monsters (once in CC, they have the edge), but they don’t have a “real” shooting, they don’t summon, they don’t have almost any way to surprise enemies and basically anyone in assassin role. And if this wasn’t enough, they have literally no way to protect themselves from assassins, ambushes, and similar tactics.
Any Ogre’s player should be well aware of this, and work around it (the alternative is losing also in CC, because in the end, if your heroes are dead, your 10 Ironguts simply cannot overcome a unit with rerollable saves of 2+, such 10 buffed Temple Guards).
A friend of mine is a hardcore Ogres’ player, but he thinks with 8 ed. mentality (blocks of ogres and Ironguts, brutal frontal charge, using the Gutbuster wartribe formation). Against some armies, it works, but playing Seraphons, I beat them on a regular basis, without breaking a sweat.
My idea is that, given that Ogres rely mostly on CC, you need to be in it ASAP… and possibly even faster than that. And you also need instruments to hit at a distance, because you need to kill the protected key units of the enemy. You simply cannot leave the time to your opponent to think and develop dangerous attacks or to deplete your forces.
Army List & strategy
(given the standard of this thread, I’ll use the 125 wounds format… but keep in mind that this IMO penalizes Ogres. Using other systems, point based, Ogres tend to field a greater number of “wounds” than their opponent).
Beastclaw avalanche formation (total 66 wounds):
1 Stonehorn (w bloodvulture)
1 Thundertusk (w Frost-wreathed ice and bloodvulture)
2 units (3 + 4) Mournfang cav.
BSB, 3 butchers, Golgfag Maneater (total 35 wounds)
6 Maneaters (24 wounds)
Wait, what? Killer Angel, you’ve just said that ogres need ranged attacks… and no Ironblaster? You’ve said that Tyrant is the general… and you don’t field him?
Yeah. I don’t need ‘em in this list.
You field very few models, so you go first, and the main bulk of your army is
fast. You field the formation as ahead as you can, then with the butchers you give mystic shield to the units of the formations (giving them a nice save on 3).
Then you run with all your models (obviously): with move 8, 9 and 12, you will be since the first turn very near the enemy lines, and then you start shooting.
This part is tricky… in the second turn, tnx to the charge with 3 dices, rerollable for the cavalry and with move 12” for the Stonehorn, you are basically sure that you’ll enter in CC: you need to evaluate exactly where you need to place your models at the end of your first movement.
If you’re facing units such Empire’s Handgunners, or Dwarf’s Irondrakes (units that shoot at 16” and need to don’t move if they want to have bonuses), then 17” is the optimal distance, because the range of Frost-wreathed ice of the Thundertusk is 18”. This means that you will have an available target that will suffer 6 mortal wounds (possibly a unit of pesky shooters), than you use the blood vultures, against that same unit, minimizing the retaliation.
If the situation is different (bowmen, and similar things with more range), You will suffer the enemy shooting, but you should have wounded its main threatening unit (if I kill 8 Empire crossbowmen on 30, they will shoot “only” 44 quarrels, not 60), AND your units have mystic shield. The enemy will concentrate fire, and probably you will lose one unit, but the Stonehorn should be save.
Then the butchers Mystic Shield the units still alive, the BSB give the bonus for additional wounds, and you can charge with the Avalanche. You’ll deliver d6 mortal wounds for the effect of the avalanche charge, additional mortal wounds for the Mounfang charge, d6 mortal wounds for the stonehorn’s charge (plus other mortal wounds during your second shooting phase, tnx to Frost-wreathed ice and Vultures). Then, in CC, you will deliver a large number of attacks… a single unit of 3 mournfang cavalry will roll 21 attack, rerolling 1, and inflicting additional mortal wound on 6 (tnx to BSB), with parry on 6 for additional mortal wounds, and giving penalties to battleshock tests.
The enemy line will crumble into pieces… but things can go wrong, you can suffer more losses than you was thinking, the enemy could be lucky or smart, maybe some units sacrificed themselves to let other ones to counterattack (you wiped away the line of Dwarf’s Irondrakes, only to be charged by Slayers).
At that point, it’s the third round, and you’ll have the second wave of attackers: the 3 running butchers, should be at range to cast three Maws (
one maw doesn’t scare me, but three? It’s a nightmare), and then you’ll have also the maneaters with Golgfag, that will be at shooting range… and their shooting hurts (d3), plus, they will be at full health (because the enemy was occupied with the avalanche), and they’ll charge the remnants of the enemy’s unit (we’re talking about a unit with 6 guys stronger than Ogres, with solid save, and buffed by Golgfag).
Another option could be: screw the Maneaters, I’ll use FOUR butchers, and a unit of gorgers.
The avalanche (completely buffed by 4 Mystic Shield) will run, and you place the unit of 5 gorgers at 12” of distance on a flank of the enemy. In the second turn,
your whole army will be in close combat… your opponent will have too many targets to be effective, and all are an immediate threat.
Gorgers are not exceptional (save at 6), but placed at 12” cannot be ignored… and probably, given that they’re so close, the enemy will target them, thus saving intact the Avalanche. You have no reinforcement, but an intact Avalanche should suffice… and the Maws will do the rest.
) And situational use against armies or players that like to use a lot of terrain features.
